Hillary Clinton is the official candidate for the Democratic Party, and as a Bernie Sanders supporter, I am crushed. But more than that, I am growing more and more livid with the contention of Clinton supporters that voting for a third party is somehow a waste of my vote, and that I should vote for the woman who lied to voters, suppressed them, rigged the primary, and funded herself illegally. I should vote for the woman who appointed the infamous Debbie Wasserman Schultz to a position on her campaign. That I should vote for the woman who helped predicate unprecedented levels of jailings among black men; someone who wishes to continue to rip our planet apart and let corporate greed go unpunished. That if I do not vote for Hillary, I am, in some fashion, voting for Trump, the orange-toned blowhard who has stirred up sexism and racism among right-wingers.

I do not accept this. It was painful to watch Bernie Sanders ask his supporters to endorse her, heart-wrenching to see his tears at the Democratic National Convention, disappointing to see him capitulate beneath a system that has done him no favors. After all, however, Bernie is a socialist, and will always place the party before his own desires. And for that, I continue to admire him. I continue to love him.

However, as a recent article by the Washington Post states, "Bernie Sanders started a political revolution. Now he can’t stop it." And I find that to be true. The revolution, after all, wasn't just against the horrible ideas held by Donald Trump and his lackeys. It was also against decades of ingrained corruption within the Democratic Party, corruption that culminated in the rigging of the primary and subsequent consequence of Hillary being nominated by the party.

Disgruntled and rightfully angered Sanders supporters now have the blessed luck of condescension from Clinton supporters, who, in addition to claiming that a third-party vote is a waste, also have the gall to say that those who do not vote for Hillary are 'privileged.'

I am a queer woman of color. I do not need to tell you how many odds are stacked against me for these characteristics of myself. I am a Sanders supporter, without the privilege that I am supposed to have in my refusal to support Clinton. And I am not alone. We are told to "suck it up," that we are being "petulant" and "childish" for splitting the vote. This has been the narrative regarding the Bernie camp from the beginning, when it became clear he posed a clear threat to the Clinton campaign.

Even when the Wikileaks emails broke and flooded across the Internet, incriminating Hillary yet again with clear bias and obvious cheating regarding what was supposed to be a neutral process, we are silenced. Our pain is shushed. We are to fall in line and stop Donald Trump from winning.

We need to consider the Supreme Courts seats that will need ti be filled during the next few years. It is a valid point, or would be, if I trusted Hillary Clinton not to appoint career Democrats who are as bought-and-paid-for as herself. When the President of the United States is a Wall Street shill, I have little hope for anyone she appoints to office to represent me.

I do not fear Donald Trump's rhetoric the way that I fear the clearly defined actions that Hillary has taken through her political career. Her lies, her brazen acceptance of corporate money, her support of environmental-destroying actions, her vacillation on so many issues, including gay marriage and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, her overt racism in the 90's ... we are supposed to forget all of this? We are supposed to forget how she treated #blacklivesmatters protesters this election year, because she made it up by allowing them to speak at the DNC?

I do not forget these things. I will not forget them or set them aside to stop Trump from winning. Hillary's flagrant disrespect of the democratic process sets a precedent for her time in office, should she win—and I do not think she will. When it comes to destroying the Constitution to suit herself, she is no better than the bigoted drivel that flies out of Trump's mouth every time he opens it.

"Hillary is the lesser of the two evils." Is she? And I, for one, believe that voting for the lesser of the two evils all these years drove moderates out of the GOP and paved the way for people like Trump to have a shot at the White House. I refuse to be complacent in it.

I'll leave you with the images that surfaced a week or so ago, of a U.S. airstrike (under Obama's presidency) that left 60 dead, including children as young as two years old. We "thought they were ISIL fighters." Following Clinton's formal nomination at the DNC, I had to turn the television off when one of the speakers praised her for wanting to "continue the fight against ISIS all around the world."

That's who you want Sanders supporters to vote for. Someone who will continue to bomb and drone-strike the Middle East, killing civilians, killing children, all in the name of 'The War on Terror' begun by George W. Bush.